


Home, Heart and Soul

by Saraste



Series: Nwalin Week 2016 fics [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Baby Dwarves, Breastfeeding, Domesticity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Nwalin Week, Pebbles, Post Mpreg, Ri Family Feels, baby blues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6953809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nori nurses his son, but something isn't right. Hasn't been for a while. Is maybe broken beyond repair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home, Heart and Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Written for nwalin week 2016 #2 **at home** or on the road. This is a sequel to my previous nwalin week fic, though it can be read as a stand-alone fic.
> 
> Beta'd by the every-patient and lovely[](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen>katajainen</a>,%20though%20I%20seem%20to%20be%20getting%20the%20hang%20of%20English%20verb%20tenses%20once%20more.%20Thank%20you,%20dear!*hug*%0A%0AAll%20the%20angst%20is%20all%20katajainen's%20fault,%20when%20she%20said%20that%20it%20sounded%20antithetic%20with%20nwalin,%20when%20I%20described%20this%20as%20'%20toothrotting%20domestic%20fluff'...%20before%20I'd%20written%20the%20latter%20third%20part%20of%20it%20or%20so.)

Nori smiles as their little pebble reaches out a pudgy wee hand to grab at Nori's new braids. He had been loathe to give up his bearing braids, having grown accustomed to them in his hair-style, but as he now has new braids, had had for months, it wasn't a hardship he didn't know how to bear. The beads now marking Nori as a proud parent were nothing short of wonderful, anyway, Dwalin having put his best skill into making them.

 

Their wee pebble reaches, grabs, and holds. Nori winces at his tug, the lad was already so very strong. Dori was proud as punch, now that he had finally gotten over Nori and Dwalin's less than proper courtship. He had been sour even _after_ Dwalin had braided lovely courtship beads into Nori's hair, even after the marriage beads, only thawing a little after his bearing beads, that, if anything, making their relationship seem right to him. Ori had been easy, never finding Nori at fault when it came to relationships, most likely only because he needed Nori to cover for him. What Ori had been doing ever since Ered Luin was something Dori would explode over, if he knew.

 

Nori reaches out a hand of his own, gently touching his son, smiling as the boy tries to put the bead into his mouth. Only then does he interfere.

 

'That's not for eating, little pebble,' he tells his son, gently taking the bead from him.

 

Little hands reach and his son makes and unhappy sound. His little lip wobbles. Nori reaches out to take him in his arms and hold him to him. He settles against the pillows at the head of the bed he'd been lounging on with his son.

 

'Hungry?' He asks his fussing son, who now kept grabbing at his tunic.

 

Nori's fingers make quick work of the laces at the front, deft at their task, the familiarity of which had settled something wild within Nori, something which still had railed against domesticity and settling down. Something which was wont to push him into dark moods. But this, his son curled up content against chest, nursing, and the lovely weight of all the beads and braids Dwalin has gifted him with, _that he hadn't had to steal_ , grounded him, always.

 

For a time, at least.

 

His son is not a fussy eater but bent at his task, drinking his fill in a way reminiscent to Nori of Dwalin. His husband is always like that when he eats, rarely does Nori get the indulgence of seeing Dwalin enjoying a meal unhurried, not just as sustenance for the body, but as sustenance for the senses as well. Though his big handsome guard seems to be at least trying to break the habits of a lifetime, now that Erebor is on the mend, now that they need not stint on food, neither of them

 

Nori is so lost in thought that he misses Dwalin's homecoming. The bed dips and his first instinct is still to reach for a knife, even when his son is now nigh slumbering in his arms. But he checks himself, but not before Dwalin notices. And his mind is wandering in no-go places before Nori can check it.

 

'Still?' Dwalin asks, softly, a little sorrowful.

 

Nori doesn't look at him. Can't. He loses himself in gazing at his son. _Their son_. Like he'd been doing before. 'Only when I'm lost in thought, you now that.' But he's ruffled, defensive, doesn’t want to need and explain himself.

 

And Dwalin does. He's braided Nori to be his even when he had known what and who he had been, still itches to be, some days. Nori might be Dwalin's but he doesn't want to be bound down. Still doesn't know how to not live in constant motion, no matter that he had always come home to his brothers, back in Ered Luin, after all his mostly illegal wanderings.

 

The worst of it is that Nori knows that Dwalin still isn't sure, if Nori left, that he would come back home _to Dwalin._ Not even with their pebble here, binding them together in ways no beads nor braids ever could have. For Nori is all about family. Even when their little trio feels ever more fragile the more their son grows, the less Nori sleeps and broods, admitting in whispers when he's dead on his feet, that he fears ruining his son. Yet never to Dwalin and only rarely to Dori, who always has a hug for him in the wake of admonishings.

 

They are both silent. Nori feels his son's mouth go slack at his breast, though the baby sucks at him intermittently, even asleep.

 

'I don't want to feel like this,' Nori says, finally.

 

He looks up, at Dwalin and beyond. Their lives are secure here in Erebor, here in their home. And it is that security which Nori finds himself so hard to trust. He wishes he weren't so very tired.

 

'Am I caging you?' Dwalin asks. ' _Are we?'_ He whispers, then, almost too quiet.

 

And Nori knows, then, that Dwalin loves him utterly and completely. He loves Nori enough to let him go, if that was what Nori wanted to do. Even when it would break something between them. Break something _in them_.

 

Dwalin is still sitting at the foot of the bed, _their bed._ Their lovely bed where they've shared pleasure together, where they've slumbered together, Nori having discovered that he could fall asleep in the safety and comfort of Dwalin's big strong arms. Their bed where braids had been woven, where dark secrets had been shared and where Nori had lain for one dark day almost two years past now, thinking of braids he'd though he'd never get to wear. Braids he's now worn and changed into new one's.

 

Where they sleep with their pebble, safe and sound.

 

And Dwalin is so far away now, so very far, the breadth of the bed separating them a vast distance there is no crossing over.

 

'You're never a cage. _Neither of you_.' Nori says and reaches out for Dwalin, hoping this isn't the beginning of the end.

 

An end with tears and unbound braids and broken beads. An end where they would both of them break too badly to be put back together the same way again. And not wanting to, since there would be no going back to what had been and it would hurt too much anyway if one tried.

 

'You're home, heart and soul…' Nori says, begging for Dwalin to understand.

 

And Dwalin reaches back, looks at Nori and _knows._ He knows that Nori _needs_ Dwalin like breathing, that his heart is the last thing Nori will ever steal, even when it had been given freely, eagerly.

 

When Dwalin carefully leans in to kiss Nori, something that had almost cracked weaves back together.

 

They are far from fine by the time Dwalin has coaxed Nori to lie down for a long overdue rest, but they aren't broken, either.

 

Not yet.


End file.
